There are times where my heart doesn't have as much thought as it has "processing" taking place, deeper in.
When this happens, I don't have much to say, but I end up feeling creative.
This week is no exception. I know I've been counting the cost again...
I've always said that there is no sacrifice too great for my Jesus. I've already settled the price. Every time it costs me more, I remember it is already done and it becomes a test of my faithfulness to Jesus, and I'm learning to settle the score. Pay the price. Walk with Christ.
But instead of explaining it away, I will let my poem speak for itself.
Showing posts with label faithfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faithfulness. Show all posts
Restore Me, Restore Others
Mostly this is due to being busy and growing through a lot of changes in my life.
Has anyone ever seen crazy restorations happen when you least expect it - right out of the blue?
This is what my life is encountering right now.
I'm watching some major rifts in relationships be mended - so much and in such a way that it has left me spiritually with my jaw dropped. I could NEVER have imagined the kind of faithfulness that the Lord is showing me in the life of my family.
Let me explain.
The Lord and I have interesting conversations and there are a few in which a moment is defined by a memorial snapshot for God to bring out later. Such was the conversation that I had RIGHT before the biggest fall out my family has ever experienced happened.
We had just changed churches, and my family was in a shambles. I knew that we needed the Lord's help because it seemed that a lot was falling apart in our family and there was no one who was safe enough to be there for us in that time.
God and I had this conversation where I consulted Him about the entire situation and I was as serious as I could be for a 19 year old.
I said, "Lord, I don't even care anymore how much it hurts, whatever it takes, help us. Heal my family."
Those 2 words formed into a desperate prayer, "help us!" were more on my lips than any other.
It wasn't too long before some of the biggest secrets came out that were both shocking and mortifying. Who were these people I called my siblings?! None of us had even a clue until that long 4th of July night, 3 years ago. Never had we experienced so much emotion, so much anger, so much hurt, so much heartbreak in small amount of time. It was wrecking.
I remembered my prayers, and I didn't understand.
But the Lord was faithful. He reminded me that in order to help us, He had to clean things out.
Fast forward 3 years and individually, a few us have begun to heal in our own way. Restoration, we thought at this point was a far off hope.
But it wasn't.
A relationship which has had problems from the get go was restored on an ordinary Friday night at a bonfire AND as of tonight, my parents are meeting with another person who was a major part of the fall out with our family stuff in the first place.
And still, I cannot forget my prayer, "God help us!"
Three years seems like a long time in high school. But it ends up being faster than one could imagine as you go into your twenties.
Before you know it, 3 years can be planned for without a problem.
Looking back on the last 3 years, I don't see all that God has been orchestrating in our lives. Who knows even now? But all of a sudden, something has shifted, and its time to make amends. Beautiful isn't it?
One day, you wake up and no longer feel resentment towards a person who you've been trying to forgive for years. In fact, you almost feel - love.
Why?
God is faithful.
So here's what I've been thinking. Its a lie to think we get to where we're going in our own abilities and our own strengths. Its only when we find the ugly end of ourselves that we begin to actually move forward and beyond ourselves in the first place.
Yeah, some people prosper for a short time even in their wickedness. But as for me? As for those of US who are following Jesus? We are blessed among men.
"Some trust in chariots and some trust in horses but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall but we rise and stand firm. " - Psalm 20:7-8
Titles, pedestals and man-made positions fade. One cannot take their college degrees into eternity. At some point none of that can help you if you don't have favor among men.
But we - we are blessed among men because we have favor with God.
"God, help us."
Desperation. Deliberation. Down-right dependent on God being good.
That is what it comes down to.
"3 years" has broken any notion I had that I was in control. What, was I in control of my emotions? My feelings? My friends? My family? My life? My job? My church?
ALL of it came crashing down.
What then, am I left with? A confused, finite mind - a pride that will fight truly unto its death.
But God. (What a wonderful phrase - but God .)
But God was answering my prayer.
Only God can help my family at the lowest and highest points. Everything and everyone else is dispensable.
It comes down to trusting in the good name of the Lord our God.
Same is true for me: only God can really help me.
I've personally been going through a season where I'm allowed to feel EVERYthing for what its worth.
My entire life I've been told I'm oversensitive and so my entire life I've been trying so hard not to feel my emotions to the fullest that they are. Stuffing all that makes for one angry person - someone who controls themselves impeccably until something sets them off. But God has been hacking into all of that and I'm able to finally forgive for real.
I'm allowed to be fully angry and I'm allowed to be ecstatically excited. I'm allowed to! But that also means that I've got to face the feelings of deep longings, disappointments and even dare to... hope.
No man can help me here. Only God. But God.
And He is. So I'm becoming free.
Free to express, free to share, free to NOT share. Free to love. Free to be just ... me. Not have to worry about people telling me that I feel too much, that I AM too much and that I'm not good enough.
God is my help. The Spirit is the Heart Changer even in our most wretched state.
Praise the Lord and thanks be to the most High God! And because He is the Heart Changer, I'm free to finally offer grace to those who have fully betrayed trust. How can I not when I'm finally beginning to understand how much forgiveness has been bestowed upon me?
"God, help us."
He is a good, good God, guys. He scares me. His unpredictable ways undo me.
But He's good and He loves His kids.
Today I visited a friend's church and the word that stuck out in the prayer time was "Restore".
Talking about how restoring doesn't just mean to put something back in its place, but to put something back in its place and abundantly more. This is the story of my heart right now: Restoration.
Here are the lyrics to one of my all time favorite vineyard songs:
Restore Me
Michael Flowers
Have mercy on me my unfailing love
Have mercy on me, Redeemer
Please open my eyes
My soul now set free
To surrender
Create in me a pure heart oh God
Renew a right spirit within me
Cast me not away
From your presence oh Lord
Cast me not away
Restore me with joy from heaven
Restore me to sing Your praise
Restore me restore others
To follow Your ways
Come breathe on me now
Oh life-giving wind
Come breathe on me now, Redeemer
You’re looking for hearts broken and contrite
Look with favour
Look with favour
Look with favour
Mercy, Mercy, Mercy
What a month this has been.
My heart has a lot being tossed around in it right now but there's a few things I've decided:
Well-meaning people can tell me all they want what they think is best for me, or they can tell me that I should be careful about what I'm thinking or deciding is "for me" or "not for me", but it really comes down to one very simple fact: No one knows better what God is guiding me to do than I do. And no one knows better then I do, the way He speaks to me.
With that understanding in my heart, I feel liberated to fully pursue what I must to bring glory to God.
I'd like to share an excerpt from one of my most recent journal entries about an epiphany I had that will change my mind-view forever. Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't believe I've ever written any of my personal journal entries in here before! So making new history in this blog which is seven years and running, here goes.
"This has to be my view - my attitude. Regardless of how I benefit, Jesus is deserving of all glory, all honor and all praise. Who do I think I am, expecting to somehow know every reason for why things don't always go my way? Who cares, besides me? My point exactly. I'm so self-centered and I somehow think its my RIGHT to know what and why God lets things play out the way they do. But here's ONE thing I can rest in: Whatever is happened whether fair or not, whether just or not, whether explainable or not, whether logical or not, God is a very deliberate God. EVERY thing will bow a knee to His voice. He absolutely WILL get the glory in every situation, and He will do everything it takes to get the glory that is due to Him because in MY life, I owe it to Him. He has been my salvation. Therefore, it is not a sacrifice but a PLEASURE to suffer whatever affliction comes my way FOR the cause of the glory of God."
I'm being pretty transparent by sharing this thought with all of you - but I am not called to hide the human in me - I'm called to let God's glory shine through my weakness.
Here's the deal: My desire is to walk in a way that is worthy of my calling.
However God chooses to make me holy as He is holy, I choose THAT way as well.
I'd be an idiot to think that God would allow me to feel comfortable all the time on this path with Him.
Coming back from my trip to IHOP-KC, I was met with 3 conflicts immediately. 3 conflicts that required 3 confrontations which - if ONE is uncomfortable for me, TRY 3 within a 24 hour period.
I'm not actually bad with confrontation, I just hate it, that's all.
As uncomfortable as it was however, the situations were taken care of in a matter of minutes or at the very most, a half an hour. Why do I worry and get so uptight?
I just need to tackle each thing as they come.
There's so many things I need to process right now - but one thing I CAN say: If there was ever a time where going somewhere else completely confirmed that where God HAS placed me is exactly where I'm supposed to be, its now. And I'm so very glad that I have something to go by.
One other thing I know is going on right now: I'm clearly in a place of waiting and in the waiting, watching. It is so apparent to me at this point in my life that I would be ridiculous if I try to deny it. People have said that MAYBE God has other dreams for me than what has been placed in my heart right now. However, I am a firm believer that if that were the case, He would share a few of them with me so I could at least have a vision and run with it.
But He hasn't given me any other dreams. He's only expounded on what has already been in my heart and added to that, has given me assignments for this present time. Those assignments include all the components that make up my working life and so I fully intend on fulfilling God's desires for me in all of it.
But waiting - AH waiting!! What a time of patience and humility. What a time of the Spirit silently destroying the very way my mind has been resourcing my heart in expanding my knowledge of God.
The thought is overwhelming: I've been all wrong. And not on a surface level, either. My entire make-up - my entire human being is completely backwards in relating to the uncontainable God; and, in order to continue on the Journey I so deeply long to finish and to finish well, everything I thought I knew and everything I believe I've learned must be undone.
Woe is me for I am RUINED! Because I am a man of unclean (impure) lips and have a heart completely consumed with my own ambitions. (Isaiah 6:5)
All of it, in vain. My eyes are just beginning to see the Lord of Hosts. And every time I see Him better, all I've know prior, is undone.
Praise God for extending mercy to my heart and - (unbelievably added to that!), has also adorning me with grace to safely be changed into a person who reflects His Son, Christ Jesus.
This waiting thing is changing the paradigm of my very breathing existence.
While I watch my watch, could it be an idol?
And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." - Matt. 26:40-41
What if what I call "waiting" is really an invitation to see.
I sing, "Open the eyes of my heart, Lord. Open the eyes of my heart..." but then I complain because in my arrogant assumptions and inability to listen, I've mistaking God's invitation to WATCH and wait with an invitation to ONLY wait and then somehow feeling like I've been left behind.
I have been proudly marching around and demanding God's blessing and favor with the kind of ignorance of a workman on strike who hasn't done his research or talked to his boss to know what the real issues are - looking like a fool and exposed to the world when the legitimate truth is revealed that actually, the CEO has been silently at work on benefits and raises the workman couldn't of even dreamed of. Instead of talking to the Boss and watch what He will do, I've been openly making God out to be small and opposite of all He has promised, and of all I have preached to others. Double-minded and two-faced.
And yet - though I have been a fool, God still clumps me back together and begins molding me on the wheel again.
I have been softened some more.
What mercy.
Woe to me, for I have been undone.
I'm so glad God is undoing me in every part of my life, in every season of my life, and that He is faithful to complete and perfect me until the day of Christ's return (Philip 1:6) - where I will finally look like Him because I will see Him for all of who He is (1 John 3:2).
Maranatha! Amen!!!
Curious George Meditates on the word of God
Hee hee. I've been thinking about the title for my next entry for a while, and I keep coming up with Curious George. I think it would be hilarious if they made a book about him meditating on the word of God.
"Curious George pulls out his bible. He meditates, and meditates and meditates."
a few pages later....
the picture is still the same - He's at a table looking down at a Bible... but question marks are randomly placed around his head.
"Curious George meditated so hard that he couldn't get into any trouble."
"Curious George closed his Bible.... and went to bed. The end."
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